Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping

Klaus Mühlhahn's book "Making China Modern" explores China's history of resilience through war, rebellion, disease, and famine, rewriting history for a new generation. It shows how China's creative adaptation has allowed it to overcome adversity and regain its footing in a convulsing world, and how its drive to reclaim regional centrality has led to its triumphs and most worrisome trends.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 736 pages
\n Publication date: 14 January 2019
\n Publisher: Harvard University Press
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A sweeping examination of China's ascent and fortitude amidst conflict, upheaval, disease, and hunger, reshaping the country's history for a new generation.

It is easy to attribute China's recent rise to shifts in political leadership and economic policies. However, Making China Modern challenges this notion. Klaus Mühlhahn goes beyond the typical framework of Cold War rivalry and national resurgence to place twenty-first-century China within the nation's long history of innovative adaptation.

In the mid-eighteenth century, when the Qing Empire reached its zenith, China commanded a third of the world's population and oversaw its most expansive economy. However, as the Opium Wars posed a threat to its sovereignty from outside and the Taiping Rebellion tore apart its social fabric from within, China teetered on the brink of collapse. Citizens managed to regain their footing in a tumultuous world through a network of family relations, economic interdependence, institutional innovation, and governance structures.

In China's quest to reclaim regional dominance, its leaders cast their eyes both inward and outward, examining industrial developments and international markets for new avenues to prosperity. This resilient legacy of overcoming adversity and weakness is evident in China's achievements today, but also in its most concerning trends. Telling a story of crisis and recovery, Making China Modern delves into the adaptability and resourcefulness that are crucial to China's survival and future prospects.

\n Weight: 1264g\n
Dimension: 239 x 163 x 49 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780674737358\n \n